


Twisting the Knife

by ravenbringslight



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bottom Thor, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Everything Hurts, Feelings, First Time, Loki Has Issues, M/M, Mild Blood, Minor Violence, Nothing is fine, Sad Ending, Sibling Incest, Smut, Warning: Loki, thousand year old fuckups
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 13:18:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9733193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravenbringslight/pseuds/ravenbringslight
Summary: After the Battle of New York, Thor wants some answers. Loki is not happy to oblige.Thor was upon him in two strides, fist balled in Loki’s coat, arm raised as if to strike. He nearly did it, nearly struck Loki across the cheek, and was only able to check his swing at the last moment. Loki gazed at him in open contempt and Thor wanted to smash the look off his face, smash and smash until this sneering mask crumbled and his brother was revealed underneath.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me at [raven-brings-light.tumblr.com](http://raven-brings-light.tumblr.com).

Thor was tired.

The physical exhaustion was the easy part, the most bearable. His body was accustomed to the strain and the glory of battle. He was no stranger to the aching muscles, the bone deep weariness, even the wound now stitched carefully shut in his side. The battle with the Chitauri had been well fought by both he and his Midgardian companions and in truth his blood sang at the memory even now. They had made a good team. 

It still astonished Thor that the Midgardians’ mortal lives were so fragile and yet they threw themselves into battle so willingly. He mused that perhaps the numbering of their days compelled them to burn brighter, more fiercely in the brief time they had allotted. He could not help but feel a surge of fondness whenever he turned his thoughts to this strange planet with its beautifully ephemeral people and he had been glad to help defend it. No, the physical exhaustion was fairly won and he wore it happily.

The mental exhaustion could be traced to one man. Immediately after the Chitauri had been defeated, Nicholas Fury had come to him to argue about custody of the Tesseract and “the war criminal Loki.” The rage of war had still clung to Thor with blood-soaked tendrils at the time, and though he bore a certain affection for humans his patience at that moment was in short supply. “Have you forgotten we are gods?” he had said, drawing himself up to tower over the smaller man, projecting the full aura of his considerable gaze on Fury and collecting the electricity in the air until all the tiny hairs on their bodies stood on end. “There is no discussion to be had. The Tesseract and my brother both come with me.” Fury had acquiesced quickly enough after that, but the display left Thor feeling weary and slightly ashamed.

The emotional exhaustion was the heaviest burden.

Loki.

When Thor had been banished to Midgard, Loki had gone mad. He could think of no other explanation for what had transpired on Asgard in his absence. Odin had recounted to Thor afterwards his and Loki's conversation in the treasure room, but Thor did not understand how that information could have driven Loki to homicide, to suicide. There must have been something wicked gnawing at his brother's soul, hidden from Thor, hidden from all of them. 

After the immediate grief over Loki's death had subsided he had spent countless hours agonizing over it, how he had missed the darkness that overcame his brother. He lay awake long nights on tear-dampened sheets regretting the part he must have played, running over and over in his mind all the words he'd said and all the words he'd left left unsaid. When he closed his eyes he imagined Loki as he once was; pale and dark at the same time, mischief written in the lines of his body, in his smile, and Thor felt a terrible yearning in his breast that he could not quite define.

And then Loki came back.

Or rather, someone who nominally looked like Loki came back, hair unkempt and eyes full of murder.

Thor’s relief was matched only by his rage. How could Loki have done those things he did, how could he have let them grieve? How could he now show up on Midgard, a sneering villain at the head of an army, sowing a path of death and destruction? He, who had never coveted either bloodshed or a throne? It made no sense.

So Thor begged Odin to send him to Midgard, to Loki, and yes perhaps in his anger and confusion he was unkind in their first meeting, but he left it with the most burning question of all.

Why did his brother hate him?

Thor was tired. But he was not yet ready to rest.

***

Central Park stretched before them. Loki stood across from him in chains, his eyes boring into Thor’s but unreadable over the metal gag (“Even his voice is a weapon and I don’t want him armed,” Fury had said over Thor’s objections). The Tesseract glowed blue between them, eerie and otherworldly. It made Thor uneasy to hold that much power in such a flimsy glass container but cowardice was never something Thor had been accused of and he showed no sign of his unease on his face. He stared resolute into Loki's eyes. Loki finally dropped his gaze and grasped the handle; with a final nod to his companions Thor activated the switch.

Traveling by Tesseract did not feel like traveling by Bifrost. With the Bifrost, Thor had always felt a sense of physically hurtling through space. With the Tesseract, Thor felt like someone had inserted a hook in his navel and drawn him inside out for a tiny yawning eternity before wadding him into a ball and spitting him out on the forested ground. It took him a moment to collect his wits.

Loki was gathering himself to his feet, raising his eyebrows at Thor, clearly a question. No doubt he had been expecting Thor to deposit him directly at the palace to be dealt with by the Allfather, and indeed Thor had given him no reason to suspect otherwise. Yet here they were, in what was clearly an old growth coniferous forest, the late afternoon sunlight filtering weakly through the trees and the air hushed and cool. 

Thor grabbed the chain hanging between Loki's wrists and began dragging him along. “You should know where we are,” Thor said. He saw the flash of recognition in Loki's eyes almost immediately.

A cabin came into view, a small building they had once jokingly referred to as their “hunting lodge.” They had spent many a week here in their youth when life in the palace got to be too much. It had been their base of operations for what had seemed endless misadventures, back when life was more innocent and carefree. The cabin was not large, but it was secret and it was remote.

They had been happy here, once.

He hauled Loki inside, setting the Tesseract by the door. There was only one true room. A large stone hearth dominated the back wall, a low door next to it opening into storage space for firewood and supplies. To the right was a bed and a chest of furs, to the left a sturdy table with several chairs. It seemed smaller than Thor remembered, and meaner, the color leached out of it with the passing of years. Surely some remnant of their joy must remain, some trace of laughter writ into the bones of the walls? But if it was here Thor could not find it now over the ache in his heart.

Thor led Loki to the table and shoved him down into a chair. He grabbed the chain connecting Loki's wrists and pulled it taut across the table, then set Mjolnir down on top of it. Loki glared murderous daggers at him the entire time, but Thor felt too agitated to care.

“You are going to sit there,” Thor all but growled as he paced back and forth in front of the table. “We are going to _talk_. Loki.”

Thor raised his hand in front of his face and had to stop and take a breath, compose himself.

“Brother,” he continued thickly after a moment. “I thought you dead. We have not spoken without fighting one another since before I was banished. I don't...I don't even know where to start.”

Loki’s eyes cut into him, twin daggers of icy green wrath in his pale face. He twisted his hands at the ends of his chain in mute reproach.

“I'm sorry, brother. I did not want you to run away. Or stab me again.” Thor felt a pang of guilt, but not enough to overcome his anger or release Loki from his bondage. 

“I know you cannot speak, but first I want you to listen.” Thor took a moment to marshal his thoughts, still pacing. He felt pulled thin, brittle, liable to snap in two at the slightest provocation, though whether he would fly into a rage or collapse weeping he could not say. Loki's eyes followed his every step. Finally Thor paused and leaned on the table. He looked up into Loki's face. “You are my brother no matter whose blood flows in your veins. You have been my brother since mother first showed you to me wrapped in your swaddling clothes and nothing that you or anyone else says or does will change that. Do you understand?”

Loki snorted.

“I want -” Thor took a deep breath and fixed his gaze somewhere in the distance over Loki's shoulder. “I want to know why you left me. I want to know why you came back and where you have been and, Ymir’s bloody _bones_ Loki,” and now he was looking at Loki's eyes again, drowning in their endless spiteful green, “why you have such hatred in your heart for me. I want to understand.” 

Loki stared at him pointedly until with a sigh Thor came and knelt before him. “I'm just going to...” he said, gesturing towards the gag. Loki raised his eyebrows and waited, not moving an inch to accommodate him. Thor grunted as he fumbled awkwardly around Loki's head trying to undo the clasp. Finally it sprang open and he lifted the gag free. Indented red lines marked where the edges had dug into Loki's face. Along with the contusions from the Hulk and the madness in his eyes, Thor felt like he hardly recognized his brother at all.

“How benevolent of you,” Loki spat, working his jaw loose. “How magnanimous to give the prisoner back his voice. Shall I sing a paean in your honor?” Thor said nothing. Loki narrowed his eyes. “Why bring me here and not the palace?”

Thor rose. “This is between us, brother, not between us and half the court.”

“This is between you and a fantasy you imagine me to be. But I asked you why you brought me _here_. Please try to keep up.”

Thor gritted his teeth. “No one will be looking for us here.”

“I think that is not the only reason.”

“What do you want me to tell you? That I brought you here because we were boys here together and I wish for us to go back to the way things were?”

“Do you?” Loki's eyes glittered.

Thor laughed, a short sharp sound with no mirth. “It is far too late for that.”

“For once you demonstrate some sense,” Loki said, turning his face away.

Thor felt his rage begin to melt, leaving his heart an aching gap in his chest. “What has happened to us?” he pleaded. “Do not pretend we were never happy together.”

“Happiness?” Loki said, turning back to him, voice high and incredulous. “Is that what you call it? All the years I spent in your shadow, just grateful for the chance to be near the sun? Is that happiness? Subsisting on meager scraps of affection like a mongrel?”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Thor said. “I have always loved you.”

Loki sneered. “Yes, you loved me so much that you hurled me off the Bifrost and then did not even check to see if I was dead or alive.”

“I did not -” Thor groped for words, at a loss. “There was no _hurling_! You let go! You left me!” 

“Ah there it is. Always about you, isn't it. Perhaps, brother, I had finally _learned my place_. Away from you.”

The rage was returning, hot and thick. Thor felt it pressing on the backs of his eyeballs.

“How can you say these things?” he demanded. “After you fell I wished I had died that day as well.”

“Well then that makes two of us,” Loki hissed. Thor was upon him in two strides, fist balled in Loki’s coat, arm raised as if to strike. He nearly did it, nearly struck Loki across the cheek, and was only able to check his swing at the last moment. Loki gazed at him in open contempt and Thor wanted to smash the look off his face, smash and smash until this sneering mask crumbled and his brother was revealed underneath.

“You are a wild beast,” Loki said, voice low and needling. “Look at you. I am chained helpless and yet you still want to hurt me.”

Thor dropped his hold on Loki’s collar but he did not move away. He felt the fury bubbling red hot in his brain, barely contained.

“You will not goad me, brother.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Never. Brother.”

Loki struggled uselessly against the immovable weight of Mjolnir pinning his arms to the table. “Let me go, damn you.”

Something in Thor snapped, the red finally spilling over, and he reached down and casually tossed Mjolnir to the side. Loki’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, perhaps sensing the change. He bolted to his feet in an instant and was halfway to the door before Thor caught him from behind in a bear hug. He lifted Loki almost effortlessly, Loki bent nearly double over Thor's arms around his waist, kicking his legs viciously but ineffectively.

“Put me down!” he screamed, writhing like an eel, but Thor’s hold was implacable. Finally the back of his head connected with Thor’s nose. Pain bloomed across Thor’s vision and his grip slipped enough that Loki was able to thrash free. He backed away from Thor, holding his hands up between them, chain clanking. Thor could see he was struggling to get his breath.

Thor barreled into him, slamming him into the wall and holding him there with an arm across his chest. He tasted blood.

“If you will not talk to me, then fight me,” he growled. “Fight me like you mean it. Brother.” He spit the word out like an epithet.

Loki giggled, the sound incongruous. “That’s me, isn’t it. Not Loki. Just Thor’s brother. As it ever was.” He sounded disgusted. “ _I will not be defined by you any longer_ ,” he said, so furiously that spittle flecked his mouth.

“Then fight me and prove to me that we are no longer kin,” Thor said roughly. 

Loki shoved Thor’s arm away and looped his chain around Thor’s neck, pulled him in close until their lips crashed into each other. He bit down on Thor’s lip, hard.

“Is this what brothers do?” he said into Thor’s mouth, pulling the chain tighter.

Thor froze in shock, but the fury in his blood was not silenced so easily. It bucked and shifted, eager for this new outlet. He began to kiss Loki back, not tenderly, but a struggle of lips and tongues and teeth. Loki let his hands drop so the chain ran behind Thor's waist and used it to pull Thor flush against him.

“How about this?” Loki gasped as Thor yanked his head to the side by the hair and bit at the tendon in his neck. “Oh I feel my brotherly affection growing already.”

Thor thought dimly that he ought to be ashamed, but the thought was distant and Loki was near. Roughly, he knocked Loki's legs apart with his knee. The berserker in him was howling, demanding blood, demanding subjugation.

“This is marvelous,” Loki was laughing, and it only added fuel to Thor's fire. He began tearing at Loki's pants.

“Will you give it to me right here against this wall? Fuck me dry and screaming?”

Thor paused for a moment and Loki hissed. His fingers found the wound in Thor's side, the one he had inflicted, and he ground into it mercilessly. “Come on, _brother_. I deserve it.”

Some combination of Loki's words and the pain finally cut through the miasm surrounding Thor's brain. Realization of what he was doing fell on him like an anvil and he shrugged free of Loki's hold in horror. 

He stumbled backwards blindly until he fell into one of the chairs. He put his head between his knees and found his shoulders were shaking. Everything was wrong.

“You should go,” he said thickly. “I'll tell father you escaped, you died, whatever you like. But you should go.” 

“But it was just starting to get interesting,” Loki said, voice smooth as honey. “Oh, I _like_ this.”

“Were we always this cruel to each other?” Thor said to the floorboards. “And I just too blind to see?”

“It is the evil in my nature,” Loki said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “How could I be otherwise? You, on the other hand…” He trailed off suggestively.

“Why are you still here?”

“It pleases me to see you brought so low.”

Thor closed his eyes in misery. This meeting was disaster heaped upon disaster. The cabin twisted around him, its once familiar walls teetering at odd angles. He had hoped that the location he chose might at least evoke a little nostalgia, but all it was doing now was highlighting how warped both of them had become, strangers though they had known each other all their lives. He felt sick at what he had just tried to do, and sicker when he realized that the desire had not fled with the rage, but remained, coiled low in his belly. Loki was right, he was a wild beast, unable to control his temper and his lust alike. It was a bitter pill he felt like to choke on.

“No fiery words for me now? No fists? I’m disappointed, Thor.”

Loki paced forward and knelt in front of him.

“If I had known it would be this easy to humble you I would have tried it long ago. Are you _crying_?”

Thor touched his own face and drew away with wet fingertips.

“Just go,” he said softly.

Loki huffed in annoyance. “This was your grand plan? You bring me all the way here to get answers out of me and then start blubbering and tell me to leave? Stunning, Thor, truly stunning. I knew you for a fool but this is too much even for you.”

Loki stood and shoved Thor in the chest with both manacled hands.

“Come on then, fight me.”

Thor stared mutely at the ground.

“Fight me!” Loki demanded, swinging at Thor's face. Thor felt the metal of Loki's cuffs smash into his cheekbone, felt the blood start to run. A terrible calm filled him. If this meeting had been a storm, this would be the eye, he thought. Its perfect stillness settled in his chest.

He rose and caught Loki's hands when they tried to hit him again.

“No,” he said.

Loki tried to knock his feet out from under him, tried to headbutt his face, tried to bite his hand. If Thor was the eye, Loki was the hurricane.

“No,” Thor repeated.

Loki was the one with tears in his eyes now. “Too much of a coward to fight me? Afraid you might hurt me? You needn't worry, you'll never hurt me worse than you already have. Just kill me and have done with it.” 

“Oh Loki,” Thor said, and he kissed him.

It was a real kiss this time. Loki froze at first, perhaps in shock, his whole body held rigid. He pulled away roughly.

“What are you doing,” he hissed.

“I don't know,” Thor admitted. Loki's eyes were very wide and very green. Thor kissed him again, enveloping Loki's face in his large hands, then kissed each eyelid. He could feel Loki's ragged breathing. He may not know what he was doing, but right now he didn't care. Loki was in his arms and he wasn't struggling and for that he would have done almost anything. 

“You're a fool,” Loki whispered, but his heart wasn't in it. Thor captured his lips for a third time and this time Loki leaned in, mouth pliant. Thor had never dreamed of kissing his brother like this, but now that it was happening all he could wonder was why it had taken so long. He threaded his fingers through Loki's hair and deepened the kiss, running his tongue along the inside of Loki's lips, and Loki _whimpered_.

The sound seemed to awaken something in both of them and suddenly they were clutching at each other desperately, frantically. Thor felt years, decades, centuries of tension start to unravel between them, fraying under the sound of their shared moans, bleeding out with each gasped breath.

Loki broke away and stumbled back, eyes darting around the room, lips puffy and red.

“Not like this,” he said. Thor didn’t understand. “Not like this,” he repeated, shaking his head dazedly. “I have to-”

He staggered towards the door. This time, Loki didn’t fight when Thor wrapped his arms around his waist as he tried to escape. This time, he melted backward into Thor’s embrace with a whine. This time, he let his head fall to the side as Thor ravished his neck with warm kisses.

Time grew hazy as they pushed and pulled against each other, caresses both rough and gentle, hair pulling and biting and the sweetest kisses Thor had ever known. Somehow they made it to the bed, their discarded clothes marking the path from the door. Thor pulled Loki’s arms over his head and looped the chain up over the headboard, leaving Loki spread panting and naked underneath him. Thor felt intensely that he wanted Loki to take him, that he wanted to give himself to his brother completely.

“I want you to fill me,” Thor said. “But we don’t have any-”

Loki hissed a single syllable and suddenly Thor felt himself dripping wet with slick. Loki’s eyes watched him hungrily as he lined himself up with Loki’s cock and began to sink down, taking him in, inviting him deep inside with open heart and open legs. Thor dipped down to touch his forehead to Loki’s as he bottomed out, Loki’s breath warm on his cheek. He was full, so full.

They began to move together, first slowly, almost hesitantly, but soon Thor was slamming himself down onto Loki’s cock, Loki bucking wildly up to meet each downbeat. Thor wanted to do this, just this, for the rest of his life, lose himself in this pleasure, in this breathless desire, in the sounds their bodies made together, in Loki’s tiny whimpers, his kisses, his cock filling all the spaces that Thor hadn’t realized were there. 

Loki threw his head back and came with a cry and Thor felt his seed spurt hot and deep inside him. Thor put one hand on that lovely exposed neck and stroked himself once, twice, and then he was coming too, all over Loki’s chest.

They lay together for a moment, boneless. Thor dared a glance at Loki’s face. He was staring at the ceiling, eyebrows drawn up, and for a moment Thor glimpsed the Loki he thought he knew. He started to reach for Loki’s cheek, but Loki was already shrugging Thor off and muttering some kind of incantation that vanished the spend from both of them.

He struggled to sit with the way the chain was looped and Thor gently helped him untangle. Loki looked at him with narrowed eyes but said nothing.

“Here,” Thor said, and summoned Mjolnir to his hand. He struck the shackles from Loki's wrists in a burst of sparks. Loki flinched, but still said nothing, and afterwards rubbed his wrists.

Loki kept saying nothing while Thor gathered their clothes, while they dressed, while they tried to put their hair back into some semblance of order.

Thor's own throat felt thick and tight and he could not bring himself to break the silence that hung heavy between them. All the words he could think to say felt clumsy, leaden. _What happens now, I love you, stay with me, I want to be with you always._ All useless, he knew.

Loki paused by the door and finally spoke.

“I was wrong,” he said. “This hurts more.”

The door swung closed behind him, the period at the end of a story that Thor hadn’t realized was in its final chapter.

Thor wept.

*


End file.
